Greek quinoa salad

This is The Shuffler, coming to you from a new location today. Don’t worry: I haven’t given up my regular job, posting about all things slow from the back of the pack. I’ll just be posting here too about all things tasty (consumption of which keeps me at the back of the pack). My job here at “What’s cookin’, iRunNation?” will be to post the recipes you send, try out some recipes from the iRun nation and, of course, try not to drool on my keyboard.

So please, e-mail your favourite recipe (and pictures, if you have them) to webeditor@irun.ca and the lovely Karen will send them along to me. It could be for your favourite pre-run snack, a tasty post-run meal – whatever gives you the yummies and causes your friends to beg for the recipe. The goal of “What’s cookin’, iRunNation?” is for this to be reader-driven: a blog by the people, for the people.

To celebrate our feature on ancient grains in this month’s iRun , I made Greek quinoa salad tonight. It was delicious.

Ingredients

–         1 cup dry quinoa

–         1 medium zucchini, chopped

–         1/2 large red pepper, chopped

–         2 green onions, chopped

–         1/4 cup sliced black olives

–         1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Dressing

–         2 Tbsp olive oil

–         2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

–         2 Tbsp water

–         2 cloves of garlic, minced

–         a few good shakes of Greek seasoning (I used Club House but you could use some combination of basil, oregano, rosemary and/or thyme)

Step 1: Cook quinoa according to package instructions (the ratio for quinoa is two cups of water to one cup dry quinoa). Allow quinoa to cool.

Step 2: Combine quinoa, veggies and feta.

Step 3: Whisk together dressing ingredients.

Step 4: Drizzle dressing over salad. Toss to combine.

Voilà! A tasty but healthy pre-swimming dinner. I tossed some leftover grilled shrimp on top for extra protein.

Wine recommendation: dry Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc